Sight Unseen
by hikari107
Summary: A quiet moment in a hospital, seen through Temari's eyes. ShikaTem,Oneshot.


Disclaimer: If I owned Naruto, it would be renamed 'Shikamaru', okay? Naruto belongs to Masashi Kishimoto. Tem-Tem is twenty-three(ish) in this fic. Enjoy!

-0-

I could not breathe as I normally did.

It was not quiet and unnoticeable, but made some sort of whooshing sound. My eyes refused to open, so I used my other senses to tell me where I was. I was lying down on something soft, like a sheet spread on a mattress, and something plastic fitted over my nose and mouth, elastic straps at the back of my head, supported by a not-so comfortable cotton fluff thingy in a cloth bag, like a pillow. Something draped over me, covering my body up to the neck.

_Beep._

_Beep._

Was that a heart rate monitor?

It took me a bit of effort to, but I managed to open my eyes, at last. My stupid fringe got in the way, but I found myself staring at a plain white ceiling, empty except for a single ceiling fan turning lazily, far from fast enough to decapitate someone. Not that the average ceiling fan was strong enough to do so.

I heaved myself upright, weary, but interested to find out where I was. Met by whitewashed walls, three beds surrounded me, one to my right, another two across from me. Kankuro and one other person occupied two beds but I was more interested in the empty bed. A tray at the end facing my own held empty plastic bowls and a pair of chopsticks, laid haphazardly beside a chartreuse melamine bowl. An almost empty bottle of water lay neglected next to it, its cap missing. The sheets on the bed were crumpled and the pillow was on the floor. It had obviously been used.

I examined myself. There was an oxygen mask put over the lower half of my face, attached to some machine, a respirator, I guessed, with pumps in it through glass cylinders, supplying me with vital oxygen every time the pumps compressed. I was in my black sweatpants and plenty of bandages swathed my chest until just below the armpits, tight, but not suffocating. The one-sided hospital gown thrown over me though, was giving me an itch. I threw it off; the saline drip attached to my left arm shook a little.

_I am officially itch free. Happy belated hospitalization, Tem, and I hope you enjoy your stay._

Anybody around was unconscious, so I didn't give a damn. The bandages were thick anyway, so I took those to be a substitute shirt. My hair was down—somebody must have untied them. Why whoever did that would want to waste their time untying four ponytails, I had no idea.

_Ow!_

I held my side. It felt like somebody went and stabbed at it with a pen. I hated this place. Hospitals were always too clean, too static, too…

"Oh, you're awake, troublesome woman?"

_Nara?_

I swung to my right to face the entrance to the ward 'o wacko. There stood Shikamaru, his left arm in a cast and bandages wrapped around his forehead area like a bandana. Black long johns encased his lanky legs while a grey top covered the shoulders to the belt of the pantaloons. Probably back from a toilet break.

Well, his hair was down too, and it didn't look half-bad. The fact it was a couple of inches longer than my own disturbed me slightly, though.

"What am I doing here?" my voice sounded hollow because of the oxygen mask, but he did not seem to mind. He sat down on the empty bed, sunlight streaming in from the windows on the wall next to him; presumably, the bed was his.

With his working hand, he took the bottle at the edge of the bed and shook the last drops into his awaiting mouth. Once he had made sure it was completely empty, he tossed it at my unconscious younger brother's head. No response.

"You both have been in comas for three days already," he replied nonchalantly, leaning forward to meet my gaze.

"Besides that, your brother's fine. You received a stab wound to the chest and lower abdomen. Your lung threatened to collapse because of the mounting pressure of air escaping into the surrounding membrane, so Sakura had to make a hole in your side and inserted a tube to release the pressure, which she removed when you started healing. Luckily for you, the wounds weren't that deep, and the one in your abdomen isn't infected, as feared."

I looked at my brother and wished he would get up to look at me. I wondered if he was all right, if he had brain damage or something like that.

"You haven't told me _why_ I'm here. I can't remember anything."

I felt confused all of a sudden. I breathed through my mask and heard the whooshing sound grow louder, felt myself growing ever more tired.

"Problem was…"

Shikamaru shuffled over with a slight limp and pushed me back on my bed, hand on my shoulder.

"The kunai that stabbed you were poisoned. Do you remember? We were on a joint mission in the lands around the forests surrounding Konoha. Some renegades on their way to raid Tanzaku town outnumbered me. I had to stop them, so I sent a messenger hawk to look for any shinobi who could help. You and your brother found it."

"And I guess it all went haywire from there," I completed his sentence for him as he let go. Forcing me to lie down was a good thing; my head hurt like hell. He must have noticed my fatigue. I still could not remember, but at least I now had a vague idea of recent events.

Vague.

"Drowsiness is a side effect of the antidote for the poison," he stated, grabbing a chair meant for visitors and sitting down by my bed.

"Plus, you've just woken up. You need to rest for a bit, so you'll recover faster."

I felt my eyes close, slowly but surely. The man helped them by gently using his hand to close my eyelids, in a slow sweeping motion from the top to the bottom.

I felt warm fingers run once through my annoyingly long fringe, and then it must have been that point where I fell asleep.

-0-

I remembered.

I was helping Shikamaru fight those hooligans off to protect Tanzaku Town. Kankuro and I had been on our way to the Wave Country, when his hawk swooped down from the skies, bearing his request for help in a piece of parchment tied to its leg. He was on his way to the town for some mission when he overheard the bandits at their hideout. Konoha was too far away to summon immediate help from, so he used the bird of prey to find nearby ninja who could help. The hawk identified us by our forehead protectors, the smart avian creature. We were still outnumbered, but we defeated them, albeit not without injuries. Thing was, Kankuro and I had knocked our heads and fell unconscious, leaving Shikamaru to defeat the remaining two. Travelers on their way to Konoha helped bring us there.

"You look like you're about to be sick," Shikamaru commented after Sakura made me consume some extremely bitter medicine.

"Bitter medicine is good for you," snapped said pink haired woman.

"You're up next, Shikamaru."

The look on his face could be described by a single swear word with a double exclamation mark at the end, but it was not as if he could run now. He limped away as fast as he could, but it was not fast enough. The medic roughly sat him down on his bed and forced a spoonful of the black goop in his mouth. He nearly regurgitated, but she pinched his lips shut, forcing him to swallow. Satisfied that her charges had taken their medicine (despite how much of an unpleasant experience it was for them), she took her leave with her trolley of tinted glass bottles and the like. Once sure no more nurses were entering to torture us, the Nara spoke again; a little of the medicine had left a small but clearly visible residue on his tongue.

"Swallow what's on your tongue first," I teased, "you look weird."

The cheeky monkey grabbed a tissue and wiped his tongue, tossing the paper in the dustbin.

I laughed at his antics, but tried not to laugh too hard lest my side hurt again. He rolled up a sheet he had pulled off his bed and hurled the large cloth ball at me. Distracted by my laughing, it hit my face, landing on my lap. We had a small, childish mock pillow-fight, with the addition of the bed-sheets, something I thought Shikamaru would not normally be enthusiastic to play.

His idea of fun was always a game of shougi, cloud watching, and a nap.

After what seemed like five minutes later, he disappeared in the midst of a flurry of sheets. Where did he go?

I got my answer as his arm locked around my neck from behind.

"Teleportation jutsu works even with a bad leg, huh?" I felt his grip tighten slightly just to tease me and I inwardly smirked. He grunted and stood up, staggering a bit. Maybe he felt he got too excited.

We heard someone clearing his throat and turned in the direction of Kankuro's bed. He had woken up and folded his arms over his hospital gown covered chest, a snarl on his face as if contemplating whether to rip my companion's head off or leave him alive.

"I saw that," he growled, oxygen mask still on his face. Seemed like he had only just woken up.

_Oh dear._

His oxygen mask came off and the heart-rate monitor went into a long loud beep as he disconnected the machine and tried to chase after Nara. For someone who had just awoken from a coma, he was amazingly energetic. Nara could not run if he wanted to, so he hid behind me.

"Get your brother away from me," I heard him whisper. His tone was more of annoyance than of fear, but my younger brother was fast approaching.

"Kankuro."

"You stay out of this, sis," he growled as his knuckles cracked," time to work the old muscles. Starting with him."

"His leg is already hurt and his arm is broken, what more do you want?!" I hissed. I had obviously seen him mad before, but this was one of the few occasions when he was not just acting tough. This time, I could see that he _really_ intended to knock the Konoha person's head off as a hundred and one scenarios appeared in my mind. _'There are more ways to kill a cat than choking it with cream'_, I figured.

A loud 'whack' could be heard as Kankuro's fist met flesh.

There on my left bicep was a bruise the size of half an orange, with the front of my brother's fist imprinted in the design. The other guy sharing the ward with us awoke from his nap, turning his bandaged head to find the source of the sound before his dazed eyes stopped at my bed. Nara stared at me, in as equal a daze as everybody else, me included. Then he cocked an eyebrow.

"What the _hell_ did you do _that_ for, woman?"

Had it not been for me, the bruise on my arm would have found home in Nara's face, and he would need treatment for a fractured cheek bone, if not a broken nose too. I held my arm. It hurt flippin' bad as the guy had a strong right hook.

"Look, I'm sorry, I meant to hit the guy behind you," my brother sounded exasperated, like I would berate him for hitting me. I myself had no idea what had just occured as everything went so fast. As Kankuro's fist was mid flight, I had suddenly heard my conscience tell me to raise my arm. I turned away to face the windows, arms folded carefully so my fingers would not touch the bruise.

"Don't apologise to me, knucklehead. Apologise to Nara-san."

"But-"

I swung to glare at him, eyes narrowed, threatening him to push his luck. He backed down and let out an indifferent 'look, I'm frikkin' sorry kid' to the surprised Nara. Sakura entered the ward at that moment, presumably to check if Kankuro was dead, before frowning when she reached the scene of the crime. A nurse who had followed her attended to me and Nara while I watched Kankuro being led forcefully by the ear back to his bed. The cherry-blossom was going on and on about how she had been worried that her patient had died and that she had come up only to find him making trouble. Kankuro, on the other hand, stayed silent as he rubbed his sore ear. After the routine checks, she ordered him to lie back down before she 'fasten(ed) (him) to the bad with a belt'. He obliged instantly before watching her drag Nara by the ear to his own bed.

"Do you need anything, Temari-san?" she smiled sweetly. The transformation was astounding. I shook my head and she left, reminding us that she would be checking again later.

"You know," Nara had a smirk on his face as he lay against the headboard,

"Men are supposed to protect women, not the other way round."

I smirked back.

"It doesn't always have to be that way."

Kankuro let out a low 'humph' as he rolled to lie on on his side.

_Dinner when we get out of here?_ Nara motioned with some one-handed signs. My brother had his back to us.

_Your treat,_ I signed back_._

He only smiled.

-0-

A/N: I had wanted to do a hospital scene for some time, but couldn't think of much...Don't know if this can be considered fluff. I don't.

Review!


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